A Stirring Along the Nile and the Mahgreb?

J'accuse!

One hundred thirteen years after the original, almost to the day, who would have thought there would be another in Egypt?

And look what's happening in Tunisia and Morocco.


The Tunisian Paradigm Shift: Why Tunisians are changing the Rules of the Game

"...you want people to be happy, bring them prosperity. You want prosperity, you need security. And security needs a strong man with a firm hand on power. Democracy? That won’t work –we’re not mature enough.

Those arguments are difficult to disprove in the Arab context. With a Per Capita Gross Domestic Product way ahead of neighboring countries, the Tunisian regime presents itself as a success story and is making the case for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa a difficult idea to sell. As a consequence, Tunisia often serves as a model for other regimes in the region, who use the perceived success of Ben Ali as a pretext to further consolidate their grip on power.

Morocco is a case in point. Since 9/11, Moroccans have been witnessing a steady “Benalisation” of the regime, with the use of police state tactics, borrowed from the Tunisian model to intimidate journalists and political dissenters. The idea is: if Ben Ali can do it and still manage to score high on growth indexes, benefit from Western support, succeed in attracting millions of tourists and foreign investment, then we can do it as well. What’s more, the Tunisians seem to be enjoying it: look how docile, happy and prosperous they look. Well, that was almost impossible to contest until the Tunisian people proved it wrong."

Read on.

I'll bet you hadn't heard about this either.